


the wreck it ralph job

by ironic_boner



Category: Leverage, Wreck-It Ralph (Movies)
Genre: Crack, Fluff, Multi, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 00:36:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17273786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironic_boner/pseuds/ironic_boner
Summary: Hardison isnot happywhen Ralph breaks the internet.





	the wreck it ralph job

Eliot likes making breakfast every morning. Parker gets up with him and starts her constantly-evolving stretching routine. She multitasks, sometimes practicing picking a lock while upside-down, or scrolling through her laptop while doing the splits. Hardison usually stays in bed until the smell of Eliot’s cooking wafts into the bedroom. At that point, he’ll wander out, sleepily drape himself all over Eliot’s back, and respond very appreciatively to being fed a taste of whatever Eliot’s making.

This morning, Parker’s sitting on Eliot’s counter with her feet behind her head. Her eyes are trained on the laptop in front of her, and she’s periodically letting out enormous cackles. Eliot smiles to himself as he collects his ingredients.

Eliot’s not even done chopping his onions, let alone putting them in the frying pan, when Hardison comes stumbling out of the bedroom to investigate.

“Girl, _what_ are you doing?” he asks Parker from the doorway.

“ _Memes_ ,” Parker says. She clicks something and then lets out another peal of laughter.

“What’s a meme?” Eliot says, checking the heat of his pan and then scraping the onion in. 

Hardison shakes his head at Eliot, then looks at what Eliot’s cooking. It’s nowhere near ready for tasting, so instead Eliot reaches for the bowl of fresh mango he chopped up earlier, and offers it to Hardison.

Hardison accepts it with a warm smile, and then goes to look over Parker’s shoulder.

“What meme?” he asks. “Hey! Is that Wreck-It Ralph?”

“Dunno,” Parker says, “But I like him. Here, look at this one.”

Click. Hardison and Parker giggle. Another click. More laughter.

Eliot pauses in cutting up the red pepper and mushrooms, and just watches them for a moment, savouring their smiles.

Hardison looks up and grins at him. “Put it on the screens so Eliot can see,” he tells Parker.

“I don’t need to see your weird ‘memes’,” Eliot says, but too late. Parker frowns in concentration for a moment, hits a few keys, and then beams as every one of Hardison’s screens is filled with a different video featuring a character Eliot vaguely recognizes from an old video game. The animation’s higher quality than he thinks it was in the original, though, and he’s pretty sure the game didn’t involve Ralph dancing or having the body of a goat or … any of this stuff.

“Whoa,” Hardison says. “How many of these are there?”

“Lots,” Parker says, bringing her feet down from behind her head and swinging them off the edge of the counter. “Lots and _lots_.”

“What the hell,” Hardison says.

Eliot dumps the tofu into his pan and agrees.

“They’re all from the same account,” Hardison continues. “And the animation is really good. Like, each _one_ of these would take hours, if not days, and there are _hundreds_. This either took one crazy dedicated fan working for a _year_ , or a huge team of animators. This is _weird_.”

“Ooh, here’s a new one,” Parker says. A video of Wreck-It Ralph in a kitchen expands to fill all the screens. He’s making a pie.

“Awww,” Hardison says. “Look at him cooking with his big punchy hands.”

He reaches over to Parker’s mouse to click the like button, smirking at Eliot.

Eliot makes a well-deserved face at him.

*

The rest of the morning, Parker’s glued to her laptop, periodically shouting with laughter and then making whoever’s nearby watch the newest video that’s amused her. Whenever that’s Hardison, he starts back in on his rant about who could possibly be doing this, and why they would do it, and why _anyone_ would want to do something _so weird_.

Eliot’s eyes are getting tired from rolling so much.

*

It’s late afternoon when Parker jumps up from her laptop, and Hardison drops his tablet like it’s bitten him.

“What’s going on?” Parker demands. “Are you doing this?” she asks Hardison.

Hardison points accusatorially at his tablet. “Somebody just _hacked_ me, man!” he says. “How - who -?”

Eliot hears an annoyed yell from outside, and glances out the window. He frowns, and moves closer for a better look. Something’s happening outside, too. Pedestrians are looking up from their phones in confusion. Some signs are out, and the stoplight at the intersection is flashing red. 

Hardison’s typing very quickly, but he doesn’t seem to be getting any immediate results. Eliot goes to the junk drawer and scrounges up a radio.

“We have to interrupt our music to bring you breaking news,” the host is saying. “The internet is broken. And I don’t mean that figuratively. Everything that’s connected to the internet is going down. We have no news yet who’s responsible for this attack, and no timeline for the internet to be restored.”

“ _Noooo_ ,” Hardison says.

*

Hardison insists they have to do something about this. He sits them down on the couch and tries to hold a briefing. However, his screens are covered in Wreck-It Ralphs, so this quickly devolves into him pacing, gesturing at hundreds of Ralphs, and asking repeatedly, “Who would _do_ this?”

Eliot tries not to smirk. Yeah, the internet going down - and taking most things with an internet connection down with it - is gonna have a lot of pretty bad consequences. But Hardison is definitely thinking more about his gaming and his internet friends and his other nerd things than, say, the stock market.

Eliot fails at not smirking.

Hardison looks offended.

“Let’s start there,” Parker says. “Who _would_ do this? Who gains from breaking the internet?”

“I dunno,” Hardison says. “Terrorists? Thieves? Hackers trying to ransom it?”

“Can’t you just hack them back?” Parker asks, wiggling her fingers in typing motions.

“ _Just_ hack them back?” Hardison asks. “Really? Why can’t Eliot just punch them?”

“Sure. I’ll punch whoever you tell me to punch,” Eliot says. “Who do I punch to turn the internet back on, huh?”

“Lemme just figure that out for you,” Hardison says. Staring pointedly at them, he smacks randomly at his keyboard, to absolutely no effect on the Ralphs on the screen. 

“Age of the geek, baby,” Eliot mutters.

In defeat, Hardison drops onto the couch between them. Parker reaches around him to poke Eliot hard. Okay, maybe that was a little mean. Eliot bumps his shoulder into Hardison’s.

“We’ll get you your internet back,” he says.

“And your internet friends will be just fine,” Parker adds reassuringly, patting Hardison’s shoulder. “They know you’ll come rescue them.”

Eliot slowly leans around Hardison to stare at her.

*

They start figuring out a plan of attack that basically involves asking all of Hardison’s hacker friends questions about who has (1) the skills to do this and (2) a weird obsession with Wreck-It Ralph. Before they’re even done making a list of who to contact, the internet pings back on with no explanation whatsoever.

It’s the most confusing, anticlimactic ending ever. Eliot figures that sooner or later, they’ll hear some explanation, either through the official news, or through Hardison’s network of fellow nerds. They don’t. Nobody’s taking credit for breaking the internet or for bringing it back. Nobody can even explain what happened or how.

*

Over waffles a few weeks later, Hardison’s laptop lags for a few seconds, and he breathes a huge sigh of relief when the website finally loads. Eliot shakes his head as he dumps strawberries on Hardison’s plate.

“Hey, don’t shake ur head at me, man,” Hardison says. “I’m traumatized, okay? The Wreck-It Ralph thing took _years_ off my life.”

“Maybe you use the internet too much. You should do something else for a change,” Eliot suggests.

“You sound like a cranky old man,” Hardison says. 

“ _I_ know something we could do without the internet,” Parker says, around a mouthful of strawberries she stole from Hardison’s plate while hanging from the ceiling.

Hardison and Eliot turn to grin at her.

“Yeah? What’s that?” Hardison asks.

Parker’s eyes are lit up in delight so it’s either stealing or sex. Eliot honestly doesn’t know which, but he’s down for either.

Honestly, with these two, he’s down for anything.


End file.
